Category: Barry Bonds

This is part of a series of mini-Redlands Connections. This is Part 3 of the series, Quick Visits. Magic Johnson and John Wooden showed up at the University of Redlands as part of a Convocation Series. This piece on Tom Flores was another one. Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, former NBA player John Block, legendary high school coach Willie West showed up. There are others. Cazzie Russell, for instance, came to Redlands with an NCAA Division III basketball team from Savannah, Ga. Russell, out of Michigan, was the NBA’s overall No. 1 draft pick by the New York Knicks in 1966.

Today’s feature: San Francisco Giants’ General Manager Brian Sabean.

No interviews with this guy. I had a job to do and Brian Sabean was being a Dad.

It was my habit to cover University of Redlands football games from the visitors’ grandstand.

NCAA rules prevented me from being on the sidelines in between the 30-yard-lines. It’s OK. I understand. That’s reserved for players, coaches and referees. But I needed better vision.

In the school’s well-constructed press box, there was too much unprofessional behavior (footnote: Maybe that’s all changed in later years), rooting for favorable Bulldog plays, snarling at officiating calls — you get the picture.

You might not think it gets in the way, but it’s a distraction in covering highly-competitive games.

It chased me to the visiting side’s grandstand.

On a sparkling, cold Saturday night, Redlands was playing Occidental College, from Eagle Rock near Pasadena, in 2008.

Game about to start. Both teams ready. Appearing out of the stairwell was a familiar face. As a lifetime San Francisco Giants’ fan, I couldn’t believe who I’d spotted. What in the world was Brian Sabean doing at Redlands? This was football, not baseball.

Brian Sabean, a longtime executive with the San Francisco Giants who helped construct four World Series teams and three champions, was spotted at a University of Redlands football one night while watching his son play for visiting Occidental College (photo by San Francisco Giants).

Quickly, I scanned Oxy’s roster.

Sean Sabean, a six-foot, 210-pound freshman linebacker from San Mateo Serra High School, was on the Tigers’ roster. It was Brian’s son.

What a great Dad, I thought. This was an out-of-the-way location, for sure.

I had a list of questions formulating for Sabean — if only I could get to him. I was covering a game. On deadline. He wasn’t working.

The San Francisco Giants had just parted ways with Barry Bonds. Years of getting close, including a 7-game World Series loss to the Angels in 2002, had frustrated Giants’ fans everywhere.

Sabean had started rebuilding the Giants with draft picks like Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner. Buster Posey would soon come onto the scene.

The questions:

Barry Bonds.

Performance enhancing drugs.

Drafting ball players.

Any trades he might be working on.

Free agents?

Sabean was constructing a team that would win three World Series championships in the coming years.

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

Bernardine Damon, the mother of a future Olympian, overheard the youngest of her four children talk about the Olympic Games as a goal during her prep days. It was news to her.

“My jaw just about dropped,” she said. “I had no idea she had those thoughts.”

High jump, Damon later claimed, “was a big fluke. The other girls had all their marks and I didn’t know what I was doing.” Still, she kept going. It’s the essence of the sport.

In high school, she cleared 5-4, leaping as high as 5-10 as a Redlands High School athlete. She was known as “Air Damon.”

Three decades after being known as “Air Damon” at Redlands High School, onetime Olympian Karol Damon-Rovelto is coaching track at Kansas State (photo by Kansas State athletics).

Girls’ prep track had only been established for a little over a decade. In the mid-1960s, Riverside Poly’s Rosie Bonds – aunt to eventual HR champion Barry Bonds – had to leave California during her prep days in order to find competitive girls’ meets.

Bonds wound up at the 1964 Olympics. It would take about a decade for California to upgrade its athletics program to include competitive girls’ programs.

At Redlands, Jim Scribner left the boys’ team as its coach to take the girls’ squad.

Scribner had bunked heads with the likes of San Gorgonio High’s Howard sisters in 1979. One of those, Sherri Howard, won a gold medal (4 x 400, 1984 L.A. Games).

He had to dope out meets against a high-powered Eisenhower High team from nearby Rialto.

Redlands High track & field was one of the campus’ top athletic programs. Often, the Lady Terriers had to match their depth with other teams’ top performers – winning meets, perhaps, by piling up points by flooding events with a prolific group of performers.

Long jump champion Carolyn Zeller (1977) might have been the Lady Terriers’ first female track star.

DAMON SHOWED UP AS AN AIR FORCE ‘BRAT’

Like a lot of athletes at Redlands High, Damon was there because her father was in the Air Force. Norton Air Force Base was nearby in San Bernardino.

Dean Olson had taken over as coach from Scribner. He had inherited a track & field jewel. Slim. Perky. Attractive. Lithe. Athletic. Blond. She climbed to a school record 5-feet-10 in actual meets. There were, at times, six-foot jumps … in practice.

“She wouldn’t tune you out,” said Olson. “She was just tuned into her event.”

As a prep star, she was a great interview. Alert. Humble. Knew how to size up her skills. Keen insight into her sport. Didn’t soak up many moments. There was much more to conquer. Never took away from teammates’ achievements, either.

By rule, prep coaches can only schedule an athlete into four events. That’s four events out of 14 (15, when there was pole vault). Damon was good for 20 points in most meets.

In high school duals, event winners are awarded five points.

Four events, max. Five points awarded. That’s 20 points. In a dual meet where 65 points is the magic number, that’s almost one-third of a team’s point total.

Damon was like a 30-points-a-game scorer in basketball. Or averaging 38 kills in a volleyball match. Or hitting .480 in softball.

Damon, who would someday soar into the Olympic games as a high jumper, was always good for 5 ½ feet, or better, at a Redlands meet. She could also hurdle. Sprint. There was the 400. She could run relays. And long jump.

By the conclusion of Damon’s prep career at Redlands, she had cleared 5-feet, 8-inches at the CIF-Southern Section championships held at Cerritos College in Norwalk.

Surrounded by Southern California’s most prestigious athletes, Damon soared to the 4A (big schools) championship. A week later, she won the CIF-Masters clearing 5-6.

It was AFTER Redlands that she started her ascent to the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

POST-REDLANDS TO THE OLYMPICS

It was off to the University of Colorado, where she was a four-time NCAA All-American. She was Big Eight champion in 1990. That year, one season after suffering a stress fracture, Damon had finally cleared six feet.

By 1991, she won the Big Eight title again, clearing 5-11 ½. Heading into the season, she was third at the NCAA Indoors, her best ever at 6-2, third place. After winning the Big Eight, she took third at the NCAA Outdoors (6-feet, ¾-inch).

By 1992, every jump was at around six feet – second at Big Eight Indoor (6- ¾), tied for 11th at NCAA Indoor (5-11 ¼), third in Big Eight Outdoor (6- ¾), fourth at NCAA Outdoor (5-11 ½). A quick note: She was ranked ninth in Track & Field magazine.

For good measure, she tried to claim a spot on the Barcelona Olympic squad, clearing a career-best 6-1 ¼, but tying for 7th at the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials.

By this point, plenty of athletes would call it a career.

A member of the USA Olympic team in 2000, Redlands product Karol Damon made quality attempts to land in the Games at Barcelona and Atlanta before showing up at Sydney (photo by U.S. Track).

By 1996, Damon cleared a personal best 6-3 ½ to finish fourth, one spot out of qualifying for the Atlanta Olympic Games. Appropriately, she was ranked fourth by T & F.

Damon had married high jumper Randy Jenkins, so she was then known as Karol Jenkins in those days.

She participated in most of the big meets – USA Indoors (6- ¼, 5th), Pan Am Games (6-2, 4th), USA Outdoors (6-feet, 9th), clearing a personal best 6-3 ½ in 1995. It was one year before the Olympics. But that 6-3 ½ was one place shy of qualifying.

Veteran star Amy Acuff also cleared 6-3 ½, claiming that third and final spot on fewer misses.

The world record at the time was 6-10 ¼ (Bulgaria’s Stefka Kostadinova). Louise Ritter claimed the American mark at 6-8, twice.

Damon-Jenkins. Quit? No!

ONE LAST ATTEMPT TO QUALIFY

In 1997 through the 2000 Sydney Games Olympic year, Damon was among the USA’s top five high jumpers. Tisha Waller. Connie Teabury, Acuff.

It was training for the big meets – the USA Outdoors and Indoors, Goodwill Games, World University Games, all in preparation for the world stage.

Held at Hornet Stadium at Sacramento State University’s stadium, Karol Damon (now Karol Rovelto – she’d married her coach from Kansas State) – was soaring against the likes of Acuff, Waller and Erin Aldrich.

In a remarkable 6-foot, 3-3/4-inch effort, her lifetime best, the onetime Redlands High star had won the Trials.

It was a Trials dominated by Marion Jones.

Damon-Rovelto was ranked No. 1 by T&F.

It was on to Sydney for the Olympics.

At 1.89 meters, which is 6-feet, 2 ¼-inches, Damon’s 24th place finish wasn’t all that close to eventual gold medalist – Yelena Yelesina, of Russia (2.01 meters, which is better than 6-8). Damon, like Acuff, failed to reach the finals.

Only a dozen years earlier, Damon was just launching her career from Redlands.

Sixteen years after her Olympic experience, Damon-Rovelto was back at it.

A longtime coach at Kansas State, Rovelto coached high jumper Alyx Treasure and heptathlete Akela Jones at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

After getting his college degree at Humboldt State (Calif.) – Giants and A’s country, incidentally – my baseball-loving son Danny moved away to Tallahassee, Florida. Master’s degree. Marriage to Sara. Job. Career. A son, Elliott. While he claimed that his baseball interests died a little because he had no one around to share it, I’d long suspected that baseball’s PED controversies chipped away at how he viewed baseball.

“I don’t think it’s fair, Dad, that those guys are kept out of the Hall of Fame.”

I blame the unfairness and ineptitude of the media for killing Danny’s baseball love. I think he does, too.

Danny, plus my youngest son, Chet, aren’t advocating PED use. All they see is a widespread dose of unequal justice. They see media corruption. In other words, the players didn’t do any more wrong than the media did in failing to properly cover the corruption. How can they be allowed into the selection process when they failed at their own reporting assignments?

By voting those same players – Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, et al – as MVP or Cy Young winners, that fraternity of media was also part of the problem. It’s some of the more disgusting acts of hypocrisy. Many held out their votes for the Hall of Fame.

Many of those media types show up on TV, or as columnists, or on blogs, nodding, saying, “See? See? We told ya.”

They watched Verducci, “Game of Shadows” and Jose Canseco break the stories, or write their books. In effect, they got scooped. They piggy-backed on their research to stand up against PED users.

Maybe Jose Canseco was as much of a hero off the field as he was on the field – using PED, then later confessing to the process. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)

Where were they when it counted? As sports editor of a small-city newspaper, I relied on their expertise and frontline coverage to properly present readers with stories. I wasn’t in MLB clubhouses like they were.

They’re not guardians of the Hall of Fame gates as they proclaim themselves. In fact, it wasn’t until after all of those golden on-field moments took place when they took action. Too late.

It’s a simple fact for Danny: Baseball’s over, at least in his mind. The sport has lost a fan.

Chet continues to surge ahead. His love for the game continues. His disgust for the Hall of Fame criteria, however, has increased. For the media. For the Hall voters, he’s spewing out total acrimony. Each January for the past few years, Chet seethes over the perceived injustice.

My son, Chet, doesn’t like the current Hall of Fame practices, but he still loves the game.

He questions Selig’s own 2017 induction, claiming that it was under his watch that baseball’s PED involvement had surged to unforeseen heights.

How dare Selig be allowed in while Bonds, among others, has been kept out. If the media, Commissioner’s office, not to mention each team had done its respective jobs, PED usage would’ve been exposed early enough and, perhaps, stamped out.

I don’t think Chet’s the only one that feels this way.

Previous Hall inductees Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre should’ve and could have known. La Russa fronted for McGwire with the media. He took up on McGwire’s side, pushing away media that dared to assault the single season HR record holder. For years, too.

Until McGwire confessed.

Torre and Cox, too, had guys in their clubhouses – Sheffield, Canseco, Man-Ram, A-Rod, plus others – that enhanced their playing efforts by using PED. World Series championships were claimed with “dirty” players on their rosters.

Weren’t those managers also part of the problem? Let’s give them benefit of the doubt.

Perhaps they didn’t encourage PEDs. But it was happening under their very noses. In their clubhouses. Did nothing to help clean up their sport.

Somehow, they all got a Hall pass to Cooperstown.

You almost get tired of hearing the refrain from voters, or the observers that don’t have a vote but want to interfere.

“Bonds was on his way to the Hall of Fame until 1998. But …”

There is no “but.”

What’s left is a mess. Millions like Danny and Chet continue to, perhaps, fret at the notion that suspected PED users Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez have been inducted. Meanwhile, some of baseball’s brightest stars have been left out.

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

It’s complete acceptance. Much like, perhaps, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees, or Astros fans whenever Roger Clemens took the mound. Or a Cubs fan when Sammy Sosa stepped into the batter’s box. Oakland and Cardinals’ fans had Mark McGwire. Gary Sheffield showed up in L.A., Miami, Atlanta and New York. The Red Sox and Dodgers, plus the Indians, watched Manny Ramirez skyrocket dozens of balls over fences. Alex Rodriguez was magnificent during his days in Seattle, Texas and New York.

You think those fans aren’t affected by Hall of Fame corruption? That corruption was media-driven.

Barry Bonds, reviled by rival fans, was beloved in San Francisco.

My son, Chet, saw Bonds strike home runs in San Francisco, at Dodger Stadium, plus both ballparks in San Diego, Jack Murphy Stadium and Petco Park. Throw in a significant bomb at Anaheim. Game 6, 2002 World Series.

When Bonds showed up in BALCO reports, law enforcement investigations, plus various other significant bodies – including a Federal government trial – Chet’s view was that his baseball achievements should remain intact.

Chet is furious that Bonds – he wasn’t necessarily a fan of Roger Clemens – wasn’t elected to the Hall of Fame.

He’s heard me say it for years.

That the same fraternity of media that voted MVP and Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and Gold Glove honors had also voted to keep significant players out of Cooperstown, the New York-based site of the Hall of Fame.

It was right under the media’s corrupt noses that PED usage was taking place.

Corrupt …

… in that all major teams, from its ownership and management to its medical staffs and dugout personnel, had to know.

… the stain and stench reaches all the way up to the Commissioner’s office – Peter Uebberoth, Bart Giamatti, Faye Vincent and Bud Selig. If they didn’t know, they’re ignorant. If they did know, they did nothing.

Tom Verducci wrote an eye-opening article for Sports Illustrated in May 2002, perhaps one of the first big breaks in reporting PED use among MLB players. For years, deep and insightful reporting was missing from the PED story. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)

Sports Illustrated Tom Verducci gets a huge “Hall” pass for a significant article he wrote in 2002. San Diego Padres’ third baseman Ken Caminiti, an admitted PED user and one-time National League MVP (voted on by the media, incidentally), was quoted by Verducci saying 50 percent of baseball players were using enhancements.

Over a decade earlier, Canseco was besieged by Red Sox fans during the playoffs against Oakland. In Boston. “Sterrrrroids. Sterrrrroids. Sterrrrroids.” They all chanted.

Canseco, for his part, struck a Greek god-like posture, flexing for them, kiddingly posing for those Fenway Park fans.

That was 1990, or ’91. Where was baseball’s media? You’d think they’d pick up on a story like that. It took over a decade before the story broke. When it did break, Canseco’s first book created the eventual storm.

The media got scooped.

Hundreds of news outlets – print, TV, radio, you name it – were planted in each major league city. Coast to coast. ABC. CBS. NBC. ESPN. CNN. Where were these journalists? Didn’t you guys remember Woodward and Bernstein, the two Washington reporters who broke Watergate a generation earlier?

The media could’ve headed off the PED era right away. It wasn’t enough to simply offer speculation. Or blind rage. Or ask questions, that players denied using.

I once wrote a column about that, noting significant names of those media personalities that didn’t properly do its job. Amazingly, one of those names I’d mentioned, Bob Costas, contacted me.

“I don’t want to you to think I surf the net, looking for my name,” said Costas in one of two communications I had with the longtime NBC sportscaster. “A friend of mine in California sent me a copy of your article.”

I promised Costas our conversation would be off the record. To this day, I won’t reveal anything we discussed further. I will share this, however: He told me that he called the MLB All-Star game, I think back in 2002, and spent the entire game bemoaning the state of baseball with all its PED usage. He was, in effect, calling them out.

Longtime NBC sportscaster Bob Costas called to talk with me about the state of steroids after a column I wrote about what the media had missed all those years. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)

Costas said he received plenty of blowback from the players and its union.

My own complaint was that kind of unspecific coverage meant nothing until evidence was produced, such as Verducci’s SI piece.

It was great talking with Costas, but he only underscored the problem. Media was largely responsible for the outbreak of PED use. By not rooting out its issues, exposing the sinners and shutting down the freakage use of PEDs in its early stages, all talk was cheap.

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

Here is how baseball’s Hall of Fame PED controversies has affected me, my family and, perhaps, a generation of baseball fans:

The raucous, unfair and unprofessional behavior of around 500-plus voting media members has rendered the process as complete buffoonery. It’s a cartoon of mass proportions. While the media continues to swing and miss in all its political coverages – whether you lean politically left or right – its Hall of Fame contributions may be among the most shameful display of professional conduct.

It’s almost as if the Hall-selecting committee exhibits no code of conduct.

It’s deep and personal when the likes of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are kept out of the Hall. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, plus Rafael Palmeiro and Manny Ramirez. Jose Canseco could’ve had a shot. And Gary Sheffield, plus Alex Rodriguez.

On Jan. 22, 2018, four more players were elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America. None of the afore-mentioned claimed a spot, though A-Rod is not yet eligible.

My son, Danny, collected all their baseball cards in the early 1990s. Born in 1984, the kid followed my lead into following a sport in which many fathers and sons enjoyed together. Danny bought, traded and craved baseball cards.

My son, Danny Brown, was a rabid baseball fan who, perhaps, stepped away from the sport once inequality of media bias started to stain the Hall of Fame.

That little guy, age eight on up, adored those cards.

He memorized their stats.

We went to games, seeking autographs afterwards.

When it was time for the World Series, or the playoffs, or a huge pennant race game, we had the TV on full bore.

My youngest son, Chet, had pictures. Cards. Autographs. Autographed balls. He stared relentlessly at TV screens whenever Bonds came to bat. On those trips to the ball park, there were no trips to the rest room or snack bar when the Giants’ lineup was only a couple players away from Bonds’ spot in the batter’s box.

As the PED drama played out, dozens of players were spotlighted for using performance enhancing drugs. In the cases of the afore-mentioned players, it’s possible they’ll never be inducted into the sport’s greatest showcase.

I remember Danny saying to me, “Dad, I don’t know who to believe any more. It’s like they’re taking my childhood heroes away.”

Eight years younger than Danny, Chet completely bought in – BIG TIME – to the San Francisco Giants. At a time when Bonds was asserting himself into baseball’s home run chase, Chet was like millions of others.

Barry Bonds, a San Francisco treat, was considered a traitor to the game by almost every other baseball fan other than the Giants. There are plenty that believe he belongs in Cooperstown. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons)

He was almost at the game against Washington when Bonds slugged No. 756. I wouldn’t let him, nor his sister, Kelli, go to a night game by themselves. They went up to the Bay Area to stay with my mom and grandparents. Kelli was just 18. Chet wasn’t yet 14. Imagine letting two kids at that age loose on the subway train – alone in The City. With all those vagabonds? Not at night. It was hard enough letting them go in daylight hours.

Meanwhile, I was on the road with Danny, heading for Tallahassee, so I could drop him off at Florida State.

I’d picked the game after – a day game – in trying to predict when Bonds would go deep for No. 756. Got them game tickets. Airline tickets. They missed seeing the record-breaker by a day. By the way, Bonds wasn’t in the Giants’ lineup in that game.

To this day, I’m kidded and reviled for being such a bad father.

A few years earlier, Chet had been at World Series Game Six. October 2002. Angels and Giants. In Anaheim. Leading 3-2 in games, anticipating the Giants’ first World Series championship since 1954, he watched Bonds strike a massive HR off Frankie “K-Rod” Rodriguez. It was a Hall of Fame moment.

It wasn’t so pretty to watch a 9-year-old boy crying after the game. The Giants had blown a 5-0 lead. They lost. One day later, the Angels claimed the World Series trophy.

Chet, like millions of others, was in total awe of Bonds. His swing. His power. His complete dominance of pitchers, some of whom may have been using PEDs.

Hall of Fame selectors missed their chance to cover the story when it was taking place. They cannot now re-enact their mistakes by voting to keep the top candidates from their chance at glory.